Trust and Truth in Documentary Filmmaking

Aron Gaudet, Director, and Gita Pullapilly, Producer, of The Way We Get By are describing their experience with broadcast news’ lack of transparency and their motivation for creating a documentary film.

Aron is describing a news reporter doing a story on a certain company leaving a small town. A survey of people on the street found a majority of people (like 48 out of 50) who were happy a certain company was leaving, and only two who thought it was “devastating.” Because the majority opinion wasn’t “newsworthy,” the station only aired a report featuring the views of the minority that the company’s loss was devastating.

Aron is describing how the film created over the course of three years a sense of relationship between the filmmakers and their subjects, and how the filmmakers created reciprocal, long-term relationships, spending time with and without cameras. Aron and Gita are contrasting this approach with the typical reporter who drops in on a person during the worst time of her life–say, when her house just burned down–asks to reveal her most intimate personal feelings, and then never sees her again.

It’s a bit of a surprise to me that the greeters didn’t see the film until it was finished, and I’m curious like Katherine how they felt about it in its finished form. In other respects, however, I do see their story as another version of Joline Blais’ claim that transparency is already “built-in” to local relationships and communities.